| Sumario: | The writer analyzes how to send messages across expanses of time. Although there has been a 20th-century enthusiasm for time capsules, most are unlikely to have any meaning for a far-off generation. There may, however, be something worth saying to generations far off in the future that may be worth hearing, such as safety warnings. A team of scientists was called together to evaluate the safety of the Waste Isolation Pilot Project, a scheme to bury 800,000 barrels of low-grade nuclear waste in caverns half a mile below the salt flats of Carlsbad, New Mexico. Given that the nuclear waste would be dangerous for 10,000 years, the scientists had to mark off the site as dangerous in a way that would make sense 400 generations later. A description of the proposed marker system is provided.
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